"Glee" News: Inside Scoop on Nine New Episodes

Photo from FOXCan't contain your excitement about the April 13th return of Glee? Me too.

Which is why I jumped at the chance to chat with Glee's exec producers Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan about the upcoming "back nine" episodes of the hit Fox comedy -- that's showbiz slang for all new episodes starting next Thursday! Yay!

Anyway, they had lots of juicy scoop, so I'm gonna lay it out for you, nice and clean, in a few different posts, so you can absorb the awesomeness bit by bit.

Rachel's latest conquest? Broadway babe -- and Spring Awakening costar -- Jonathan Groff, who's signed on for six episodes as Jesse St. James, the star singer on the rival high school's super-slick glee club, Vocal Adrenaline. That should really up the tension between the teams for the rest of the season.

But things are still simmering between Rachel and her song-and-dance soul-mate, Finn, played by Cory Monteith. "The Finn-Rachel relationship is always a core to the show," says co-creator Falchuk. "It's the bridge of the two worlds, which was the popular jock boy with this unique glee girl. She represents glee and he represents the rest of the world."

Which means there's still going to be that underlying tension -- sexual and otherwise. "The relationship is always going to be a challenge for both of them even though both secretly and not so secretly sometimes love each other," says Falchuk. "They're always going to be sort of watching each other from afar. No matter what's going on in their lives, they'll always have one eye on the other one. By the end of episode 22 of the back nine [episodes], we'll reach a temporary conclusion to that, we'll reach some kind of an understanding between the two."

He wouldn't elaborate on what. But perhaps it has something to do with Finn's uber-hunky best bud Puck (played by show stealer Mark Salling) -- because according to Falchuk, we haven't seen the last of the oh-so-sizzling Rachel and Puck pairing!

"Every good girl likes a bad boy, and there's nobody more good than Rachel and more bad than Puck," says Falchuk. "We didn't know putting them in a relationship would make people so excited. So we go back and explore that a little bit. And we'll continue to explore it. It's high school. Everyone is always bouncing around to everybody else in high school so that won't stop."

Gleeking out already? Want more scoop? Stay tuned to The Stir, because I've got guest star scoop coming up later today!